


The Séance and The Boy

by Natileroxs



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, First fic for this fandom, Gen, Lots of Angst, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Spoilers for Season 1, sad af, the last time i was this early at a fandom was never
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 13:18:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17982047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natileroxs/pseuds/Natileroxs
Summary: He drinks, smokes, screams, and laughs (hysterically of course). But mostly he just cries.Klaus has never been the closest to Five but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t try every day to contact his lost brother.





	The Séance and The Boy

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, I am so early to this fandom. It's scary. 
> 
> The Umbrella Academy just grabbed me and tore me away from my other fandoms, so sorry to the readers of my other fics. I'll get to them, I swear. 
> 
> My first fic so I hope I wrote all of them in character.

A month and one day after Five disappears, Klaus sits in his room and winds his hands around his head, voice low as he pleads.

 

_“Five, please… please, c’mon.”_

 

He curls his hand into a fist and taps the side of his head with it before massaging his temple. “Five,” He whines and then waits. Four minutes and he huffs, rubbing his eyes and groans. “Fine, be like that.” He reaches over and fumbles with his lighter until the cigarette in his other hand is alight. “Not like I care either way. No, not like we were close or anything. Not like I just want to see my _little_ brother again. Hey, maybe you might just be still alive... maybe? Or _maybe_ you’re just being the stubborn little shit that you were before. Don’t you dare give me hope, you ass.”

 

A noise comes from behind him and he perks up, flicking his gaze to his back wall. A short figure stands there but Klaus can’t get a good look before it disappears.

 

“Five?”

 

* * *

 

Eight months and six days after Five disappears, Ben is awoken by a loud crash and shrill screaming. He immediately tears his way down the hall towards the sound, finding it coming from Klaus’ room. He opens the door to find a lamp knocked over and Klaus loudly wailing with tears streaming from his eyes.

  
“F-Five,” He sobs, gesturing wildly. Ben drops to the ground and wraps his arms around his brother. “It- I think it was him…” Klaus clutches tightly to his  _younger_ brother and, for the first time, Ben feels older. It is strange, he thinks, that his carefree brother would be reduced to this.

 

“You saw him?”

 

“I-I swear I did. Five, come back!”

 

Ben just pulls Klaus closer and when his brother quietens and his breathing evens out, Ben slowly drags him to bed and hugs him. They sleep like that, and in the morning they ignore the others’ questions and go about the day as if nothing happened.

 

* * *

 

Two years, seven months and eight days after Five disappears, Diego is ready to leave. His last night is spent gazing out his window, wondering just how it came to this. A knocking at the door gains his attention and he finds a skinny, hollow shell of a person standing there. Klaus grips tightly to the doorframe and blinks at him. “Hey, Diego?”

 

Number Two jumps down from the windowsill to fully face his brother and sighs. “Klaus. What do you want?”

 

“You’re leaving, right?”

 

“Yeah,” He hums, crossing his arms and making his way to the bed. “‘Bout time to leave this shitty place behind.” Klaus shuffles into the room and mumbles something. As he gets closer, Diego can start to smell the weed in his brother’s breath and pushes down the urge to scrunch up his nose at the stench. “Why?”

 

“I was thinking about leaving myself,” Klaus whispers. “Got nowhere to go but that’s not what’s keeping me here.”

 

“Oh?” Diego raises his eyebrows and lies back on the bed, fitting his arms under his head. “What’s keepin’ you here then?”

 

“Five,” Klaus rests on the bed as well, on his side, turned away from Diego. He plays with a few short locks of his curly hair. “His soul would come here... If he would ever come _back_.” He spits out the last word with venom. “No matter how sober I get, no matter how much I plead, he’s so damn stubborn. I thought if I stayed here he’d find me easier.” His voice slowly loses its edge and instead chokes up.

 

Diego turns over and twists his arms around Klaus’ waist and pulls him closer. “You can’t see him?”

 

“No…” His body shivers and Diego’s grasp tightens. “I’ve tried, sometimes I think I see him but he never quite…” His voice gets louder as he talks but then he quietly whispers. “ _Stays._ ” Diego takes a shivering breath and tries to contain his anger. Anger not at Klaus, not at Five, but at the world. At whatever took Five from them, whatever gave Klaus this torture of seeing every ghost except the one he truly wishes to see. And he’s most especially mad at himself, for not being able to fix this. He should have stopped Five from leaving or gone after him. But he didn’t.

 

Klaus then begins to let out an agonizing scream and Diego rubs his hands down his brother’s arms and his blood boils.

 

He leaves in the morning.

 

* * *

 

Eight years, two months and seven days after Five disappears and Ben’s funeral is tense. Klaus is sober and Vanya watches with grief as he quietly excuses himself from the group as soon as he can. Later she finds him in the bathroom, a bottle of the more expensive of Dad’s alcohol stash in his hand as he drinks, face gaunt and gaze empty. She quietly sits next to him and begins to murmur a tune she’d been playing for them as long as she could remember.

 

He places the bottle down and lets out a gut-wrenching laugh and then twirls his fingers in hers. “Why does life hate me so much?” He speaks quickly, his twisted cackles making her sick to her stomach. She doesn’t move though, her line of sight angled downwards. “Five, now Ben. Who else am I gonna lose? Who else will I only get glimpses of? I just want to see them both, Vanya.” He addresses her, she looks up and they stare at each other.

 

“You can’t see Ben?” He shakes his head wildly, almost nodding at a point.

 

“I don’t know,” He whines. “I might see him, but it might be someone else. Same with Five.” His voice trembles and Vanya reaches up with her free hand, brushing stray tears away from his face. “He-he… I see all these souls, Vanya. All these little boys who could be Five, but never stick around long enough for me to be sure.” He hiccups. “And sometimes… no matter how much I try, he won’t answer me.”

 

“Maybe he’s still alive,” Vanya says. “Maybe that’s why you can’t see him.” He sighs, defeated.

 

“But I can’t see Ben either. And we… we know…” She unravels their intertwined hands and instead scoots closer, wrapping her arm around his back and pulling his head onto her shoulder.

 

“Maybe it takes time.” She whispers softly in his ear.

 

For a while they’re both quiet before he mumbles ‘ _Five_ ’ and she lets herself cry silent tears with him.

 

* * *

 

Nine years, four months and twelve days after Five disappears, Ben is floating about as a ghost, watching the world from an outsider's perspective with only his brother to talk to. But maybe that makes it worse. Because for all that words can do, they can’t hug someone, they can’t wipe away tears, they can’t brush someone’s hair back.

 

Klaus sits in a back alley, smoking something Ben doesn’t ask about when he begins to mutter the same words over and over again. “ _Five, come back._ ” His eyes are glazed over and he is shaking something horrible.

 

“Klaus,” Ben said, attempting to shake his brother out of whatever funk he’d gotten into. “Klaus.” He says it louder the second time but his brother still doesn’t look.

 

“Klaus!” He yells and a few of the weaker ghosts nearby scatter, making him feel a little better. Number Four actually does look up now, blinking slowly. He then runs a hand through his disheveled hair.

 

“Oh, Ben, what’s up?” He grins but the distant look hasn’t left his eyes quite yet.

 

“What were you saying?” Ben knows, of course, but he wants to hear him say it. Klaus doesn’t make eye contact.

 

“I was asking Five to come forward. Obviously, he didn’t.” He gestures at the empty space around him. “Maybe he just hates me, wouldn’t be much of a surprise.”

 

“He doesn’t hate you.” Ben sighs and slides against the wall parallel to Klaus. “He never did, you know that.”

 

“Then why won’t he come forward. You’re here, but you actually sorta like me, so it must be that Five hates me. What over explanation would there be.” He doesn’t sound too sad, just worn out. Exhausted.

 

“Maybe he’s alive.”

 

“Ha,” His voice is choked up. “A kid as young as him, surviving on the streets by himself. I might have been naïve before, but I’ve seen it Ben, seen what the world really is. No more perfect little superheroes in shorts and blazers.” He wipes his filthy hands over his face. “I just want to see him, Ben.”

 

“I know.” He rests his head against the wall, praying that he doesn’t fall right through it.

 

“Doesn’t hurt to hold out a bit of hope, Klaus.”

 

* * *

 

Sixteen years, four months and thirteen days after Five disappears, Klaus is lying in the back of an ambulance listening to a televised report that Reginald Hargreeves is dead and he lets out a sigh of relief before letting his gaze dart towards Ben. The ghost just shakes his head.

 

Klaus escapes to a back alley near the mansion he used to call home before he begins to hum his father’s name, praying that he’ll come forward and that it’ll mean Five is still alive out there. The old man doesn’t show and Klaus breaks down, Ben’s hand ghosting his shoulder.

 

* * *

 

Sixteen years, four months and fourteen days after Five disappears, Klaus sees him again. Exactly how he left with the exception that he is swimming in his too big clothes and looking dazed.

 

“Does anyone else see little Number Five, or is that just me?” Klaus asks because he’s sincerely not sure if Five is alive or in fact dead. Ben looks equally confused.

 

“Shit,” Five looks himself over and everyone else stares at him too.

 

Inside him, hope has bubbled to the brim and Ben is smiling so widely that Klaus has to pull his face taut as to not mirror him.

 

* * *

 

Sixteen years, four months and twenty-two days after Five disappears, the world ends and they all go back to stop it. To stop Vanya. To save her.

 

It reminds him of the day of Ben’s funeral when she’d sat with him. Ben told him that he’d sat there too, neither of them strong enough for Klaus to see Ben yet. She’d been crying yet she’d comforted him. He owed it to her to save her, save her from herself, from there father’s torment, from the empty life she’d lived the first time around.

 

They’d ended up four days after Five had disappeared the first time, so when Five turns back up at the house, they all have to pretend that they’ve been worried sick, to keep up the act. Later on, Klaus finds Five in his room, probably writing equations on the walls. He knocks and hopes.

 

* * *

 

Five has never been one for much sentiment, but he cries when he buries his brothers and sister and each time that day passes he curls up and sobs. The older he gets, the more he misses them. Yet the hope that he’d see them again diminishes. It’s slowly sucked out of him.

 

When the Handler comes, he’s desperate. He throws away his morality and instead focuses on the fact that he will finally be able to go  _home_. He will finally be able to see his family.

 

And finally, he figures out the equation and escapes the commission’s grasp. Despite his sudden short stature, he’s happy. Happy he gets to see his family again. Yet, he doesn’t have much time for happy, because there is so much to do and so little time to do it in. He barely gets to speak to his family in any other way other than disappointment.

 

When they go back to the past, he knows he’ll have to show his father that he has returned, even if it comes with drawbacks as explaining where he’d been - _“Nowhere important, I was only gone for a few minutes. The future looks kinda nice from what I could see” -_ He lies.

 

So there he is, in his room, resting for maybe the first time since he left, and there is a knock at the door. Of course, it could be anyone. Vanya, Ben, Grace, Pogo or even Father if he was _lucky_ but he has a feeling it’s none of those. In fact, when he opens the door, it’s Klaus, and he looks like shit. He looks tired, like finally all the years of hell had caught up to him. Five feels the same way. He’s sure he looks the same too.

 

“What is it?” Five says and it comes out more hostile than he wants. Klaus oddly enough doesn’t seem to phased.

 

“Can I come in?” Klaus asks and Five finds it strange. Because usually, his elder brother would just go right ahead. The old Klaus he knew would. It catches him so off guard that he doesn’t say anything for a second before he mutely gestures inwards. Klaus steps inside and stands awkwardly for a bit before sitting on the bed.

 

“Again, what is it?” He feels more worried now. Klaus is so quiet, so still. It’s making him uncomfortable.

 

“I called for you,” Klaus tells him in a hushed tone.

 

“What?”

 

“You know, when you went missing.” Five keeps in the small gasp as he realises where Klaus is going with this.

 

“You tried to summon me from the dead.” He doesn’t know how to feel about them thinking he was dead. “And failed, obviously.”

 

“I thought it was because you hated me.” Klaus places his hands in his lap. After a second he looks up at Five as the younger/older now sibling shuts the door, worry etched in his face. “Do you?”

 

Five rubs his eyes. “No, of course I don’t. You’re my brother.”

 

Klaus lets a small smile curl up his lips. Five sits next to him.

 

“I used to cry whenever I thought I saw you. Never was you, I guess.”

 

Five sighs and awkwardly pats him on the shoulder. “Oh.” Is the only thing he can come up with.

 

“Glad it wasn’t you though, you’re alive now.” Klaus lets out a cackle and shakes his head. “Wow, Ben was right.”

 

“Ben?”

 

“He told me you could be alive, I’d lost so much hope that I didn’t believe him.”

 

“Ah,” Five nods. “He’s smart, always has been.”

 

Klaus flashes him a grin, a real one, and Five absolutely shatters, because this is what he’d wished for all those years before. When he was all alone, this was all he wanted. All he wanted was a smile, maybe a hug. So he cries. Cries for the first time in twenty years. Klaus looks panicked for a moment before he wraps his arms around Five and they fall back onto the bed, Five resting on top of Klaus.

 

Sobs rack his body and he shudders as Klaus combs his fingers through Five’s hair. He lets out a whine and Klaus pulls him closer.

 

“I wanted to see you guys too.” The words escape his lips oddly enough without a wobble. “I missed you all so much, especially after seeing your bodies.” As he cries, he feels the weight on his back disappear and he feels lighter, better. More… real.

 

“I know,” Is all Klaus whispers. It’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed.


End file.
